Xiao Mao and his wife listened to Li Miao's explanation, nodded hurriedly, and expressed their thanks.
It was twelve o'clock that night.
Xiao Mao and the relatives who came to help took the clothes and toys of his son Xiao Sheng, grabbed the soil from the threshold, and handed them to him together according to Li Miao's instructions.
"Okay, you all just wait for me here. I will be back in an hour at most."
Li Miao said something, got on his small wooden boat, and rowed towards the center of the river.
Under the gaze of Xiao Mao and others, his thin figure quickly disappeared into the dark night...
At this time, white mist floated on the river, like a hazy gauze hanging on the water in the middle of the night.
There is a wooden pole standing on the bow of Li Miao's small wooden boat, and a kerosene lamp with a gourd-shaped glass cover and an opening at the top hangs on it. Shake gently.
This is the rule for sailing on the Sichuan River at night. It is necessary to erect a pole and hang an oil lamp on the bow of the boat.
There is also a large battery hanging next to it - in the countryside of Sichuan and Chongqing, the square flashlight with a battery is called a battery, which is not the same thing as the one used in electric vehicles.
This battery is for lighting.
After all, it would be too difficult to retrieve the body with just an oil lamp.
Li Miao's corpse-retrieving boat had just reached the center of the river.
By the light of the oil lamp and large battery hanging on the bow of the boat, he saw many corpses rising and falling in the water around him.
Not visible during the day. By late night, most of them had floated up from the bottom of the river.
These corpses were of men and women, old and young, floating in the river.
It looks a bit eerie.
Ordinary people would definitely be scared out of their wits.
Li Miao, the corpse hunter, was not surprised at all. He walked calmly through the floating corpses and headed towards the east side of the river bend.
Occasionally, a corpse suddenly drifted towards the boat against the current. He would poke it from a distance with the bamboo pole in his hand, his eyes stern and his voice solemn.
"Your family didn't ask me to fish you out, so I have no obligation to take you ashore. Go away! Otherwise, I won't be polite."
So the floating corpse slowly drifted away again.
Soon, the small wooden boat reached the east coast.
The river slows down here and turns almost at a right angle. Many corpses, debris, etc. will be deposited here.
Li Miao only needs to find the body of the little boy Xiao Sheng, take it back and give it to his parents.
Considering that Xiao Mao and his wife were both generous and good people, and Xiao Sheng drowned purely accidentally, he thought this was a very simple job.
"Little baby, uncle will help your parents to fish you out. You have to be honest."
Li Miao muttered to himself and stuffed the Xiao family's threshold soil into the pocket of Xiao Sheng's clothes.
Then he used this dress to wrap up his favorite toy, a stuffed tiger doll. Throw it into the water.
Clothes and cloth tigers have great buoyancy. Even if a handful of soil is stuffed inside, it will still float on the river.
"Xiao Sheng, come out. Xiao Sheng, come out... your soul returns to its original place, and your body emerges from the water. Come back!"
Li Miao shouted with a high-pitched voice on the mist-filled river.
The next moment, the clothes floating on the water suddenly sank, as if they were suddenly pulled under the water by an invisible hand. Disappear.
Seeing this scene, Li Miao knew that it should be a success.
really!
About half a minute later, the body of a little boy, already soaked and turned white, slowly emerged from the water.
It was floating less than three meters away from the small wooden boat.
He was lying on his back with his eyes closed.
According to previous reports, he had been drowning for nearly half a month. But the body was intact, with no other changes except that the skin was white and slightly swollen.
Seeing this scene, the relaxed expression on Li Miao's face disappeared.
His eyes became a little serious.
Because it stands to reason that it would normally take such a long time to be soaked in water. Even if he is not eaten by fish or shrimp, even if there is a breath of corpse air lingering in his body, his body is not completely rotten. But it must be extremely swollen and the skin is damaged, so it’s hard to see the specific appearance.
However, the condition of the child's corpse in front of him seemed a bit abnormal.
"Could it be that the corpse has transformed?"
Li Miao thought to herself and didn't rush to get it on board.
But look at it carefully.
He also tried to scatter a handful of old rice that was more than five years old, and it landed on the body of the child and the surrounding water, but there was no reaction.
"Does that mean there is no corpse transformation or evil spirit? Okay, maybe the corpse energy has not dissipated, and the situation is special, so it is relatively well preserved."
Li Miao felt relieved, picked up the long hook in the cabin and installed it on the front end of the bamboo pole, stretched it out and hooked the child's body over.
Boom!
The child's corpse hit the side of the ship, making a dull sound.
Li Miao picked up another hemp rope.
There are strands of black mixed in this hemp rope, which is woven with some black dog hair mixed in it.
Black dog hair can ward off evil spirits and can be mixed into hemp rope to suppress corpses.
This is also the secret method passed down from ancient times by those who fish for corpses.
It has a somewhat similar feel to the coffin bearer's "phoenix rope".
Li Miao stretched out his hand.
The hemp rope wrapped around the child's body like a flexible snake, pulling it out of the water and into the cabin.
Then Li Miao covered the prepared white cloth and whispered.
"If you can live and grow up, you may have a prosperous and beautiful life, but it's a pity that you can't enjoy it in this life. Don't be resentful, and reborn, you may have a better life in the next life."
Saying this is also to appease it. Of course that may be the case.
After doing this, Li Miao rowed the boat and went back slowly.
After landing, he picked up Xiao Sheng's body wrapped in white cloth and jumped from the boat.
He said in a deep voice: "Where is the coffin that I asked you to prepare?"
Xiao Mao and his wife looked at the child's corpse wrapped in white cloth with sad eyes and burst into tears.
A relative quickly said: "Mr. Li, here, here!"
He led him to one side, where there was a fine small coffin, which was suitable for placing a child of five or six years old.
Li Miao put the child's body in, then took back the white cloth covering it, and turned around and said.
"Mr. Xiao, Mrs. Xiao, you two come over and take another look. Then we have to close the lid of the coffin and carry it back to wait for a coffin bearer to arrange it."
Hearing this, Mrs. Xiao couldn't bear it anymore and rushed over.
Lying on the coffin, crying loudly.
"My little boy, you died so miserably. Why are you so disobedient and sneaking out to play in the water? Woohoo."
Xiao Mao also wiped away tears and looked very remorseful when he looked at his son in the coffin.
Li Miao is relatively calm.
It's not that he has a heart of stone, it's just that he is a corpse hunter, because he has seen too many such scenes.
It would be the greatest mercy for him to fish out the bodies of the victims and hand them over to their relatives.
"Mr. Xiao, if there is nothing else, I will leave first."
After Li Miao confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the child's corpse, he completed his mission and planned to leave.
As for the reward?
Corpse collectors with a good reputation like him always pay in advance.
The Xiao family had already paid off the two thousand yuan.
"Thank you Mr. Li, thank you Mr. Li. Fourth child, give Mr. Li another red envelope."
Xiao Mao ordered his fourth brother.
But he was rejected by Li Miao.
Those who fish for corpses also have their own rules. They clearly mark the price and will not take more.
However, just when he turned around and was about to sail home.
Sudden!
boom.
There was a noise from the coffin.
Then came Mrs. Xiao's exclamation.
"My little boy has moved! He, he is still alive."
Um? !
Li Miao's heart suddenly tightened, he turned around suddenly and walked quickly towards the coffin.
"You guys get out of the way first."
He directly pushed Xiao Mao and his wife away, keeping everyone away from the coffin.
Xiao Shengdu had drowned for less than half a month. How could his body be still alive after being soaked in the water for such a long time?
If there is still movement, it must be a zombie!
But apart from the fact that the body didn't have many signs of decay, judging from the other signs, it didn't look like a corpse.
Li Miao stared at the little boy in the coffin, puzzled.
Suddenly, swish.
The child corpse in the coffin suddenly opened its eyes and sat up straight.
The surrounding relatives of the Xiao family were immediately frightened and took a few steps back.
Some were timid and even screamed out in fright, their legs trembling.
Only Xiao Mao and his wife, although they were subconsciously afraid at first, felt more sad when they saw their son sitting up from the coffin.
"No! It's really transformed into a corpse!"
Li Miao stared at the child's corpse in the coffin with its eyes open and was being cooked, and became wary. His right hand grasped the black dog hair rope wrapped around his waist.
Although the methods used by corpse fishers to deal with corpse ghosts are not many, they are not weak either.
Especially for someone like Li Miao, he was confident that dealing with an ordinary child corpse would not be a big problem.
But what he never expected was that Xiao Sheng's body did not launch an attack after it sat up from the coffin. Instead, he spoke.
"Dad, Mom, where is this place? What are you doing? Why don't you come over and give me a hug?"
This, this is...what's going on? !
Even the well-informed Li Miao fell into a sluggish state at this time.
How can a corpse speak human words?
Perhaps the legendary zombie king-level existence that transcends "evil" can speak human words. Because they have absorbed the essence of heaven and earth, their bodies have changed again.
But no matter how you look at the child corpse in front of you, it is definitely not at the corpse king level.
Li Miao could feel that it might not even be considered a vicious corpse, but at most a slightly powerful walking corpse.
If you really have to work hard to solve it, it shouldn't be difficult... right?
But anyway, why can it speak human words? And completely retain the memory and status of his life?
This puzzled Li Miao.
So for a while, he didn't dare to take action easily.
So weird!
For a moment, there was deathly silence all around.
They were silent, while Xiao Sheng, who sat up from the coffin, started shouting.
"Mom and Dad, are you angry with me? Oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry, I will never dare to disobey you again and sneak out to play by the river. Mom and Dad, don't be angry, come here and give me a hug." "
The child corpse began to cry, wiping his tears with his hands in grievance.
What rolled out from those eyes were drops of blood and tears.
But it didn't realize it. It was really like an aggrieved child who was not loved by its parents.
At this time, Xiao Mao's wife couldn't bear it anymore.
While her husband was not paying attention, she broke free from her opponent's hand. He actually rushed over here, still crying.
"Baby, my baby. I'm sorry, I'm sorry that my mother didn't think much of you. If you are really a ghost, then take your mother away too."
Xiao Mao and the Xiao family were at a loss.
Li Miao secretly yelled something bad and quickly turned around to stop the woman.
But he never expected that the woman in this situation was so incredibly strong that she knocked him back a few steps without much preparation, and he almost stumbled and fell.
Then Mrs. Xiao rushed to the coffin and hugged Xiao Sheng, who was crying aggrievedly.
At this time, Li Miao only had one thought in her mind.
"It's over! This silly woman will definitely be harmed by the zombies."
But what happened next shocked him.
I saw the child corpse shedding blood and tears hugging its mother, stopped crying, and pouted a little aggrieved. She also muttered in a low voice: "Mom, I want to go home. It's so dark here and I'm scared."
If you didn't know that it had been drowned for almost half a month, you would probably think that it was a living person.
Especially Xiao Sheng's vivid facial expressions and tone of voice, which even the Corpse King might not be able to possess.
Strange, so strange!
Li Miao has been fishing out corpses for more than ten years, but he has never fished out anything so weird and evil.
For a moment, he didn't know how to deal with it.
Mrs. Xiao lifted the child's corpse from the coffin and held it in her arms, just as it had been alive. He whispered softly: "Baby, let's go home."
Xiao Mao just woke up from a dream. He quickly looked at Li Miao and asked anxiously: "Mr. Li, look at this..."
Li Miao also reacted and quickly took a few steps to stop the mother and son.
He said in a serious and low voice: "Mrs. Xiao, you know better than me what is going on with your son."
Mrs. Xiao is not stupid either.
Instead, she was a college student. She was also Xiao Mao's virtuous wife, and together they managed the farm's breeding in a spectacular way. She was considered a "strong woman" of that era.
After listening to Li Miao's words, a hesitant expression flashed across his face.
How could she not know that her son had drowned for more than ten days?
"Mom, why don't you leave? And dad, dad, why don't you come over?"
Xiao Sheng said in a childish voice, with a sinister air.
"I……"
Xiao Mao was speechless and didn't know how to answer his son for a moment.
Mrs. Xiao gritted her teeth: "Mr. Li, I know Sheng Sheng's situation. But no matter what he is, since he can speak normally, he is my son. I want to take him home!"
"no!"
Li Miao stopped her and said in a serious tone: "Your son has turned into a zombie. No matter how human-like it behaves, it is still a zombie. You cannot take him back."
"But he didn't harm anyone!"
"It doesn't harm people now, but that doesn't mean it won't harm people in the future. Maybe it is an extremely powerful evil thing, and its current appearance is all disguised. In short, you must not take it home."
Li Miao was determined.
Although to say the least, this is actually a family matter.
But as a corpse hunter, with such a weird and evil corpse right in front of him, he really couldn't let it go.
Seeing Li Miao's attitude, the rest of the Xiao family also echoed.
"Yes, sister-in-law. Xiao Sheng is that person now. He is not a living person and cannot be taken home."
"Sister-in-law, it's better to listen to Mr. Li. Let Mr. Li handle it."
"Boss, wife, this is a strange thing. You can't enter the Xiao family's house."
The child corpse held in Mrs. Xiao's arms seemed not to understand what these people were saying. She didn't know why the usually amiable uncle could suddenly be so fierce.
He was so frightened that he crawled into his mother's arms and even raised his head to ask if he was being disobedient. Everyone didn't like him anymore.
This scene is simply weird to the extreme.
